Innovative new tools for cancer research: Tumor-LN-oC project enters second half

Last week, AMIRES travelled to Finland for the Tumor-LN-oC M24 project meeting, marking the halfway point of the 4-year project. The meeting took place in Turku and was hosted by Abo Akademi University, the only Swedish-speaking university in Finland.

The meeting was an opportunity for the consortium to share updates and find solutions to shared challenges in the development of the tumor-lymph node-on chip platform. A virtual meeting with the project officer confirmed that we are well on track to achieve the project objectives and adjustments to the workplan do not negatively impact the project as a whole.

Jointly with the coordinator Ioanna Zergioti from the National Technical University of Athens, AMIRES led the presentation on project management, administration and finances. This is especially of interest since Tumor-LN-oC is the first lump sum project which AMIRES manages, which requires some additional clarifications, but ultimately gives us valuable experience when it comes to growing number of lump sum projects in Horizon Europe.

AMIRES also presented on the activities we are leading on the dissemination, communication and exploitation work. Tasks in this work package also include the project IP strategy, as well as the commercialisation roadmap which was produced by AMIRES during the last months in a second, updated version in cooperation with all the partners. The prospects for commercial exploitation of this technology look very promising, though the path to the market will be long and accompanied by many regulatory processes, necessary approvals and certifications to ensure the reliability and  efficacy of the platform as a research tool and potentially, in the future, IVD device.
The formal discussions were complemented by a guided visit to the laboratories in the Turku Bioscience Centre in which local researchers presented their facilities and experimental setups, a common dinner and viewing party of the Eurovision semi-final.

Overall, we are happy to report that the Tumor-LN-oC project has made considerable progress in its 2 years of implementation: the different technological modules that are essential to the development of the platform, including microfluidics, spectroscopy, microoptics, automatic image analysis and bioprinting have been developed and  optimise independently.

The second half of the project will now focus on integration of all these modules into the Organ-on-Chip platform and its optimisation with the ambition to keep the platform as user-friendly and affordable as possible, despite its complexity. The consortium will also soon start planning the validation of the integrated organ on chip platform with real patient samples, which will be a critical step in demonstrating the efficacy of the technology and its potential for clinical use.

Thanks to the Tumor-LN-oC team for their excellent work and to the Abo Akademi University for hosting us in Turku, it was a pleasure!

As we move into the second half of the project and continue with the development of the Tumor-LN-oC platform, we are excited about the potential of this technology and the impact it could have on cancer research by providing unique new tools for metastasis diagnosis, drug development  and personalised medicine. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with our partners and exploring new ways to enhance this innovative technology!

Learn more about the project and our progress so far on the website!